No refined gentleman who keeps himself to his own class
and refrains from meddling with politics could ever by any chance
imagine the airs of broad-blown impudence which are sometimes assumed
by ignorant and stupid boors who have been endowed with a license; and
assuredly no one would guess the extent of their political power
unless he had something to do with election business. The landlord of
fiction hardly exists in the quiet towns; there is seldom a smiling,
suave, and fawning Boniface to be seen; the influential drink-seller
is often an insolent familiar harpy who will speak of his own member
of Parliament as "Old Tom," and who airily ventures to call gentlemen
by their surnames. The man is probably so benighted in mind that he
knows nothing positive about the world he lives in; his manners are
hideous, his familiarity is loathsome, his assumptions of manly
independence are almost comic in their impudence; but he has his uses,
and he can influence votes of several descriptions. Thus he asserts
himself in detestable fashion; and people who should know better
submit to him. One electioneering campaign in a quiet town would give
a salutary lesson to any politician who resolutely set himself to
penetrate into the secret life of the society whose suffrages he
sought; he would learn why it is that the agents of all the factions
treat the drink-seller with deference.
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